19/10/2026
Europe’s ecosystems are in crisis, even though we have environmental laws. The reason is structural: our legal system still treats nature as property, a resource to be used, rather than as a living system with value of its own.
A new European Citizens’ Initiative, just launched, wants to change this. It calls on the EU to recognize Rights of Nature in European law. Ecosystems would be granted legal personality, much like companies, along with the right to exist, to regenerate their vital cycles, and to be restored. Citizens and communities could act as guardians of ecosystems, with legal standing to defend them.
Does this conflict with human rights? No. Without a healthy natural foundation, human freedoms cannot be protected in the long term. And it works. Ecuador has enshrined the rights of nature in its constitution, which helped stop mining concessions in the Los Cedros cloud forest. Rivers such as the Whanganui in New Zealand and the Atrato in Colombia have legal rights, and Bangladesh has extended them to all its rivers. In 2022, after a citizens’ initiative with more than 640,000 signatures, Spain’s Mar Menor lagoon became the first ecosystem in Europe with legal rights of its own.
According to the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, over 400 Rights of Nature initiatives exist worldwide. Now the movement has reached the EU.
Every signature counts. Sign now and spread the word: eci.ec.europa.eu/067/public/#/
More about the initiative: rightsfornature.eu